Navigating times of turbulence with creative collaboration
Paul and I just got back from Brazil, and wow, what a trip! We had the chance to dive deep into creative leadership with a group of 35 leaders from the state of Minas Gerais in a training organized by Sistema OCEMG, who is representing cooperatives all over the state.
These leaders are heading cooperatives within agriculture, finance, transportation and health, and they’re part of a movement that’s all about driving economic, social, and sustainable development through democratically owned businesses.
Just like we experience it in Denmark, leaders in Brazil are challenged by the dramatic changes taking place in the world as a result of the economic, environmental and democratic crisis affecting all parts of society.
Kaospilot was founded at the end of the cold war, which was also an era of big societal change. The school back then adopted the tagline “Navigating in times of turbulence” to manifest a mindset, which was all about believing that challenges can be turned into opportunities through creativity and collaboration. Times are yet again turbulent. And now in a more disturbing way, so this mindset seems more relevant than ever.
When we do the training in creative leadership, we create a space for shared exploration. Sure, we bring the framework and the tools. But the learning is a shared effort. And we place urgent creative challenges in the center of the learning space – challenges and questions to which the leaders do not have a response because previous experiences do not seem to produce the outcomes they are looking for. In our approach these creative challenges are an invitation to look for new opportunities and to involve the team in co-creating the path to new surprising outcomes.
This is where the exploration starts and as we go, we develop new personal leadership skills like authenticity, the ability to lead a space, listening, questioning, bringing people on board, seizing the moment for breakthroughs and forming creative relationships within the team.
The potential lies in the collective creativity of the team and the ability to learn as you go.
Our time in Brazil was truly inspiring. We worked with leaders who are responsible for organizations that have collective ownership, collective effort and collective outcomes in their DNA and the creative leadership approach just seems to fit very well. We are looking forward to continuing our exploration of creative leadership with the same group of leaders when they visit Kaospilot HQ for the next two modules in June.
For more information see; https://www.kaospilot.dk/product/creative-leadership/
Or reach out to David Storkholm – david@kaospilot.dk